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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
About this resource pack
This campaign aims to raise Irish people’s awareness of how their
actions effect people in the Ireland local communities and people in the
developing world and help people to make the connection between local
action and global impact.
This campaign offers a creative dialoge through making and writing
postcards. The postcards are the means to generate a dialoge between
young people, schools, communities & government representitves
around our food choices. The activities offered in this resource pack raise
important questions such as: Where our food comes from? How its farmed?
How much it costs us to buy food? how much the people who grew it get
paid? And what can we do to help reduce hunger?
This campaign was created by a group of students from Art, Development
and Education course, Cork Institute of Technology, Crawford College of
Art and Design in 2010/2011. The group research the topic of consumption
and aid in the context of sustainability. The sessions offered here are based
on facilitated sessions that took place in Carrigaline Educate Together
School in March - April 2011.
The activities are designed for young people ages 8 to 11.

Join us campaign on Facebook, where you could upload your
own postcards and help spread awareness
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Write-4-Food#!/pages/
Write-4-Food/167624436624792

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Write 4 Food : What do we know about the right for food?
Session Aim is to introduce the group to the theme of Food Rights
Session Objective:
ÀÀ To reconsolidate the group at beginning of session
ÀÀ To introduce the participants to facts and information related to the theme
ÀÀ To create space for participants to express their opinion on the topic.
ÀÀ To generate motivation for the group to continue working with topic
ÀÀ To generate ideas how to continue working with theme
Time

Description of activity

10 min

Play a game, each one say their name
and a vegetable they like with a
movement that shows the food.

5 min

Tell the group the plan for the next
hour and give name budges.

Masking tape and markers

Introduction

15 mins

1.Put images relating to the right for
food around the room
2. ask each one to choose a picture
that say something about the right for
food
4. sit in the group for 5 min and talk &
write what do they think is the issue
the picture shows
5. each group feeds back what they
talked about

White tack
printed MGD about hangar
and
child rights including right
for food

Find out what do they know
about the right for food

1. explain: every first journey is stating
with a powerful question.
ask: What are the question we would
like to explore in this topic?
2. Divide into groups of 3-4 people
3. Ask to write in the group 3
questions:
- questions that are important to ask
- questions that you’d like to know the
answer
- questions that you want to ask
people who produce food in our
community (the baker, supervalue
manager, farmers)
4. Once the group written the
questions, they can dress up and get
ready to be recorded.
5. film each group on video

Session Objective: To create a Postcard Campaign to raise Irish people’s awareness of how their actions affect people in the
developing world by making the connection between local action and global impact.
Write to important people who make decisions about where our food comes from, how it’s farmed, how much it costs you and me
to buy food and how much the people who grew it get paid. This workshop plan can be adapted to any group or any timetable.
Time

Description of activity

Resources

Objectives

5 mins

Introduction to theme of the Right
to Food and explanation of activities
planned for the day

Info about Millennium
Development Goals and the
Right to Food posted around
room

Introduce facilitators to group

15 mins

Name game – Participants stand in a
circle, introduce themselves and name
a food that the like which begins with
the same letter as their name eg: “My
name is Deirdre and I like dates” Go
around the circle and each participant
repeats the person immediately before
them and introduces themselves. At
the end see if everyone can remember
what has been said by going round
the circle once.

20 mins

Moving Debate – room is divided into
agree and disagree. Facilitators read
a statement aloud and participants
move to the one side of the room
depending on whether they agree
or disagree. They can remain in the
middle if they are undecided

Agree/Disagree Cards
3 or 4 statements relating to
the Right to Food eg:
There are no hungry people
in Ireland
The way to stop hunger is to
produce more food
We are helping Africa by
buying their Food.

To stimulate ideas and debate
among the participants about
the theme and to develop their
deliberation skills

20 mins

What are problems and solutions to
hunger?
Group divided into four two working
on causes of hunger and two working
on solutions to hunger. Brainstorm
ideas on paper using words or images
or both.

Oxfarm activities:
Making a Meal of It,
Lesson plan 7: Why are
people hungry? & Lesson
plan 9: Hunger, what can we
do?
Large sheets of paper
Pens/colours

To begin to get participants
thinking creatively about why
hunger people go hungry and to
begin to generate ideas as to how
this problem could be solved

10/15 mins

Short Movie – Show a short movie
that relates to food consumption,
production or hunger eg: Fast Food
Nation, Supersize Me or The Meatrix

DVD/YouTube link
Projector or video player

Another method for stimulating
ideas or showing a different
aspect on the topic

10 mins

Reflection on Film – ask what
participants thought of the film, did
they learn anything new, do they
agree with the film’s message, and
how does this message relate to the
Right to Food?

Ice-breaker exercise for facilitators
if they have never met the group
before and/or if the participants
don’t know each other.

Further reflection and discussion
of theme

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Time

Description of activity

Resources

Objectives

25 mins

What can we do? In groups or
individually participants brainstorming
solutions to the problem of hunger
and the right to food and answer the
following questions:

One page of four questions
photocopied for groups or
individuals

Looking towards the solutions
and the message they want to
send to the world. The ideas
generated will be incorporated
into the postcards.

A4 pages of coloured card
Magazines, newspapers,
leaflets with images of food,
packaging can even be used
for collage
Scissors
Glue
Colours, pastels, chalks
Letters and letter stencils

To create a set of postcards which
although different all send a
clear message about the Right
to Food. Following the workshop
these images can be scan and
printed and sent to relevant
people. Participants can decide
who they would like to target
for their campaign, their school
authorities, local businesses or
politicians, national government
etc.

What can Children, Schools,
Community, and the Government do
to promote the Right to food?
40 mins

Art session – Making Postcards
Participants are given the chance to
create a postcard using images and
a clear message of what they see as
most important for the Right to Food.

10 mins

Feedback – participants share their
work with the group and explain their
idea behind the image

Allow the group to see the work
produced by all participants and
to generate further ideas.

10 mins

Warm down and wrap up – ask each
participant to share one thing they
learned in the workshop and finish
with a game

To bring the day to a close with
some reflection and fun!

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
What can be done about hunger?
What can children do to reduce hunger?

What can schools do to reduce hunger?

What can Carrigaline do to reduce hunger?

What can govenment do to reduce hunger?

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Sample postcards
made by 4-5-6 class at
Carrigaline Educate Together
School, March 2011.

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Background to the topic of Food Rights
Where our food comes from and how it’s
produced
Coffee
Coffee originated in Ethiopia from where it travelled to Europe
and later the Americas
Cultivation: Tropical climates throughout Latin America, SubSaharan Africa and Asia
Top Producers: Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Columbia
Highest consumption per capita: Finland, Norway, Iceland,
Denmark and the Netherlands (Ireland 38)
2.25 billion cups of coffee consumed every day
25 million small producers world wide
Problems with cultivation: Deforestation, soil and water
pollution, habitat destruction and large inputs of water: it takes
about 140 litres (37 US gal) of water to grow the coffee beans
needed to produce one cup of coffee, and the coffee is often
grown in countries where there is a water shortage, such as
Ethiopia.
Fair Trade: guarantees coffee growers a negotiated preharvest
price. A number of fair trade impact studies have shown that
fair trade coffee has a positive impact on the communities that
grow it.

Chocolate
Chocolate produced from the cacao beans which originated in
Central America
Top Producers: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria and Brazil
50 million small farmers depend on the cacao trade
Top consumers: Ireland consumes 11.2kg of chocolate per
person every year, it is number 1 followed by Switzerland,
Liechtenstein, Luxemburg and the UK
Problems with cultivation: Deforestation, Child labour:
According to a report by the International Labour Organization
(ILO), in 2002, more than 109,000 children were working on
cocoa farms in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), some of them in «the
worst forms of child labour».
Fair-trade cocoa producer groups in Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon,
Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Haiti, India,
Côte d’Ivoire, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Sierra Leone. As of
2005, less than 1% of the chocolate market was Fair Trade. [31]

Bananas
Bananas are native to Southeast Asia but are cultivated across
the tropics

Top producers: India, Philippines, China, Ecuador, Brazil
Fyfees, an Irish company, are one of the top banana exporting
companies in the world even though no bananas are grown in
Ireland. They import bananas from Central America and export
them to the rest of Europe
Problems with cultivation: There is a “race to the bottom”
being pursued in the banana industry as companies relocate
from country to country in search of ever cheaper bananas.
But somebody has to pay a cost for food to be ‘cheap’ and in
the case of bananas this cost is being paid by hundreds of
thousands of workers, small farmers and their communities.
The impacts of this race to the bottom are devastating:
migration, gender discrimination, cancer and even death
caused by unprotected agrochemical use, environmental
damage and a widespread failure to respect internationally
agreed labour standards including, increasingly, the right to
join an independent trade union.

Maize
Maize (corn) originated in the Americas but is now the most
widely produced corn though only a small proportion goes
towards human consumption the rest being used for animal
feed and bio-fuel
Top Producers: US, China, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia
Genetically modified (GM) maize is one of the 11 GM crops
grown commercially in 2009. [32] Grown since 1997 in the
United States and Canada, in 2009 85% of the US maize crop
was genetically modified. It is also grown commercially in
Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Canada, the Philippines, Spain
and, on a smaller scale, in the Czech Republic, Portugal, Egypt
and Honduras. [1]

Rice
Rice is the most important grain for human consumption and is
the second most widely produced grain after maize (corn)
Top producers: Djibouti, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam
Top Consumers: China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh & Brazil
Problems with cultivation: requires large inputs of water

Tomatoes
Tomatoes are native to Latin America and there are over 7500
varieties grown in the world. Top producers: China, US, Turkey,
Italy

Intensive Farming & Agriculture
Traditionally farmers would have grown lots of different crops
and also kept animals so that they could feed themselves and
also have some stock to sell for income.

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change

Nowadays there is an increasing pressure to farm intensively.
This is a system of farming using large amounts of labour and
money on small areas of land, relative to the amount of crop
being produced or animals being reared. Intensive farming
concentrates on one crop or animal type to make it as efficient
as possible.
Large amounts of people and machinery are used to spray
fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides to growing crops: large
amounts of money are needed to buy the machinery for this
and then to keep them working as well as to build water
systems to keep the crops watered.
While these farms are very efficient at producing a lot of food
at low prices and keeping production costs down they have a
very negative effect on the environment. These include:
Damage to the health of farmers and workers spreading the
chemicals
Soil damage and erosion leading to drought and crop failure
Damage to hedgerows
Factory-style production of meat, eggs and dairy products with
little regard for animal welfare
Can lead to an overreliance on the crop and if it fails this can
cause major hardship

What can we do?
Food production systems must achieve three aims: increase
production and productivity, reduce pollution and re
source degradation, and be socially and economically viable.
Among hundreds of attractive possibilities, the following will
have priority:
ÀÀ Prevent soil erosion with live hedges, grass strips,
orchard trees, green manuring
ÀÀ Improve the management of irrigated areas, in
particular by improving drainage to the 11 million hectares
of waterlogged irrigation land in Asia;
ÀÀ Large-scale promotion of integrated plant nutrition
systems, which provide crops with the nutrients they need
at the optimal return to the farmer;
ÀÀ large-scale promotion of integrated pest management
systems, which use biological and other techniques to
control crop pests with a minimum use of pesticides;
ÀÀ development of animal diets to reduce methane
emissions from cattle;
ÀÀ improved fishery management to allow marine stocks to
recover, the;
ÀÀ Foster biodiversity through techniques such as
mixed use buffer zones to protect existing areas, and the
maintenance of crop diversity through crop rotations and
sequences.

Every day we consume goods that are packaged. The most
common dilemma we have today is the disposing of the large
amounts of waste we produce. In effect there is much interest
today in the disposal of segregated waste. In Ireland we are
provided with three bins and black bin, a green bin and a
brown bin for collection by the local town councils in Ireland.
Un recyclable rubbish goes into the Black bin, Recyclable
rubbish such as cardboard and plastics goes into the green bin
and organic waste (such as food waste) goes into the brown
bin. This service that the council provided for each household
is charged every year and there is lot more emphasises being
put on local and Global industries disposing of their wastes in a
more environmentally friendly way, as on an international level
there are big problems with waste management.
While in the Past, materials from dumps were used creatively,
there is becoming more and more of a problem with chemical
levels from the disposal of substances such as computer
components in developing countries, where toxic levels are
affecting the climate. Some of the materials we use daily in the
packaging of daily good are: adhesives, Aluminium, Biphenyl (
BPA ), cling film, Phthalates, re-using packaging and plastics.
Packages food and drink consumption in Europe is predicted
to grow by 2% annually. The annual volume of 864 billion in
packaged units is to have increased by more than 80 billion in
2015. So packaging types are going to be very important on
the market place over the coming years in order for us to allow
households to recycle what they can. (Reference : The Future of
European Food and Drink Packaging 2015).
While the report is focused on the business side of packaging
there is also a large amount of the article dedicated topic such
as sustainable packaging and the plastic bags ban. Today
we are charged for every plastic bag we use from our local
supermarkets are Plastics while they can be recycled can take a
long time to disintegrate.
Glass accounts for 10% of all packaging in produced goods.
It can be easily recycled and there are many bins and other
recycling facilities around local areas. The first bottle banks
were erected in 1977 and there are now 50,000 bottle banks
on over 20,000 sites around the UK. Recycling rates in order
countries have reached up to 80%-90% unlike the 33%
recycling rate we see for glass in the UK. So if you’re not
availing of the local bottle banks you should be.
Better infrastructure in Other European countries makes it easy
for people to recycle. So if you can recycle what you can today
as it’ll set a good example for future generations. If the more
we consume is on the rise then the amount we have to dispose
of is going to be on the increase and we must make the most
out of what is being provided in our Countries so we can put

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
more pressure on other Countries with waste disposal issues.
If their waste and dump grounds are so toxic they are causing
a change in the climate then we must do our best to set an
example.
Nuclear power can even be recycled all we need is to
encourage the governments of today to invest in industrial
resources that provided us with the ability to re-use waste.

Local Food, Why is it better?
When we buy food today we mostly see our choice as informed
by simple notion of hunger. However, each choice we make
has many consequences on other people lives, such as farmers
and farm workers, and on local and distant environments,
on faraway and close by communities, on the economies of
different countries depending on where the food was grown,
processed, packed, and shipped from and to. Not many people
realise the amount of power that is hidden in every food
choice, a power that is reflected in Wendell Berry words: “Eating
is an agricultural act”.
If we look at the food we buy today, our food is usually less
fresh since it been often picked before it’s ripe and it travelled
for many miles. It less tasty because the verity was chosen for
other attributes such as capacity to handle the long transport,
long shelf life, and appearance. Taste is usually very far on that
list. And it’s less health, much of our food today is packaged
and processed, it’s full of artificial preservatives, sugar, salt, fats,
which are known to cause cancer and obesity.
We know very little about the food we get in the shop, we
sometimes know where it came from, we might know the
date of expiry, and if it was grown in an organic method and
if some of it was produced in fair trade values. We don’t know
the conditions of production, or date of harvest, and for food
that is not marked ‹fair-trade’ we don’t know the farmer’s share
in the profit. less knowledge means less democracy, and less
power to consumers.
Small scale local food system on the other hand, are more
self regulating, maintain a dynamic equilibrium through
time, they keep local knowledge alive on many aspects
such as soil, ecosystems, land races, non crop plants,
pollination, community needs and more. The local farmer
is a better stewards of the last since they have to deal with
the consequences of their actions, consequences that big
agribusinesses can avoid.
The first step for changing this system is to re-establish
the connection between farmers and consumers. We need
to change our diet, reduce meat and animals products,
reduce products that require excessive transport, and buy
products that fresher food with less packaging. And we need
to designate more land for stewardship practice, meaning
small farms, allotments, and back gardens. To support food
producers that have a bigger stake in their communities.

The characteristics of alternative food system would be
to produce food and consume it on bio-regional basis; to
shorten the food supply chain; and to create interdependent
ddscommunity of farmers and consumers, distributors and
retailers. A local food system with those characteristics will
have a positive impact on local cultural development, on local
environment, on local social aspects and on the local economy.
In this model our diet will be using a more traditional food
caching (food cellaring, preserving, drying and canning), it will
be more seasonal and it will be produce in a local area that is
defined by distance.
Borrowing the idea of water shed, a local food system can
be described as ‹food shed’ – a geographically limited
sphere of land, people and businesses tied together by food
relationships. The benefits of a food shed system are:
reduce fossil fuel (by less transport), less energy spent on
process and storage because food is consumed sooner.
Food waste is recycled back into the farm brining nutrients
back into the soil, diversity on farm and landscape level
healthier integration of urban, working landscapes and natural
ecosystems, and money stays in local economy.
A shorter food chain have many positive aspects, a local food
supply system is more able to respond to global collapse
such as one caused by pick oil and climate change. It forms
better relationship between consumer and farmers and it
allows integrated farm management (IFM) and other points
that were described above. However, local food system is
more vulnerable to extreme weather, war and long economic
collapse, it won’t be able to provide a long supply in area of
food shortage, and it forces areas to grow produce that doesn’t
suit the climate or soil. In all those a global food system is much
more capable.
We don’t need to choose between the two, but to create the
option to enjoy both in a responsible way. Getting in closer
touch with the people who produce our food and creating a
food community is an important step. Making our food life a
democratic process by finding our more information about our
food, what it contains, where did it came from, and what where
the work conditions of the people who made it. By asking
ourselves why do we choose a food item: Is it because it’s
nutritious? Or because it’s cool? Is it because it’s fast or because
it’s tasty? How do we feel after we would it this food? Do we
buy it only because it’s cheap? Or sweet? Or trendy?
If we make our choices more informed we are already
making a positive change in our life and consequently in our
communities.
(Sources: Stephen R. Gliessman. “Agroecology” chapter 23 culture,
community and sustainability; Bruce Darrell, “Fleeing Vesuvius over coming the risks of economic and environmental collapse” the
nutritional resilience approach to food security; Rob Hopkins “Local
food”)

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Feeding 6 Billion People from a Small
Planet
Access to Food: The International and Domestic
Context
Hunger and malnutrition are probably the greatest challenges
to human development in today’s world. The number of
chronically hungry and undernourished people in the world
spiked at 1 billion in 2008 as a result of sharp rises in food
prices brought on by the world economic crisis (Khoo, 2010).
In the Irish Hunger Task Force 2008 report Irish Aid signalled
combating hunger as the priority for aid and development.
The Millennium Development Goals include reducing the
number of people suffering from hunger by half by 2015 (Irish
Aid, 2008). Hunger and malnutrition, however, are not just
problems of the developing world; developed countries are
now facing crises of over-nutrition and obesity and despite
greater levels of economic growth and human development
there are still some sectors of society that suffer from food
deprivation.
This essay will first look at hunger on a global scale and the
response from the international community before turning to
deal with issues of hunger in Ireland and how we are dealing
with this at a local and national level but also how our Aid
policy is contributing to fighting hunger on a global scale.

Hunger is a Worldwide Problem
Since the 1960’s the proportion of hungry people in the world
has decreased from 33% to 18% but the world’s population
has almost tripled since then and the absolute numbers
have not improved. In south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa
hunger continues to grow (Irish Aid, 2008). In India there are
204 million hungry people and in China 142 million. The
majority of people who suffer from hunger are not facing
acute starvation instead they face chronic malnutrition which
effects life-expectancy, maternal and infant mortality and
child development. The lack of essential nutrients such as Iron,
Iodine and Vitamin A cause anaemia, mental retardation and
blindness in millions of people (Khoo, 2010).
There is, however, more food in the world: food production
increased by 25% between 1990 and 1997. The problem is one
of production, access and distribution. Climate change and
global warming are having serious affects on food production
in countries where hunger is most urgent and continuing
inflation in food prices continues to impede people’s ability
to access sufficient food (Irish Aid, 2008). The richest 20% of
people in the world consume 16 times more than the poorest
20% and this is leading to a crisis of over-consumption.
There are 1 billion overweight people in the world and 300
million obese people. More doesn’t mean better as many

obese people lack essential Vitamins and minerals and are at
risk from major health problems such as diabetes and heart
disease (Khoo, 2010). The Food Safety authority in Ireland have
found that it is ten times cheaper to feed a family on foods
that are high in fat, sugar and salt than healthier foods such as
fruits, vegetables and lean meat (Healthy Food for All, 2009).
In Ireland over-consumption is not the only problem; it is
estimated that 15% of the population experience some
form of food deprivation be it through, affordability access,
availability or choice (Ibid). “Food poverty can de defined as
the inability to access a nutritionally adequate diet and the
related impacts on health, culture and social participation
(Combat Poverty, 2008).” Those groups which are most
vulnerable to food poverty in Ireland are low-income
households, the elderly, the homeless and the refugee/
asylum seeker communities. Income and the percentage
share of income which must be spent on food, access to
retail outlets where cheaper and healthier food is available,
the capacity to shop, availability of transport and access to
storage and cooking facilities can all act as constraints on food
consumption (Ibid).

The Aid Response
The aim of Irish Aid’s Hunger Task Force Report was to evaluate
the status of world hunger, to assess measures that are already
being taken and to propose new measures to tackle this
crisis. The report states that there is a failure of national and
international governance in terms of efforts being made to
eradicate hunger and that it is unlikely that the MDGs will be
met. They see a role for Ireland in becoming a world leader in
the eradication of hunger by promoting this as an essential
aim of development and poverty reduction initiatives. They
also see a need for the reform of international institutions such
as the UN and international financial institutions such as the
World Bank and the International Monetary fund to focus on
methods for eradicating hunger (Irish Aid, 2008).
On a practical level they recognise the need for increased
agricultural production, especially in Africa where Irish
Aid is most active, and they have chosen to support small
holder agriculture as the most efficient and effective way
of combating hunger. By promoting bio-diversity on small
farms, farmers can become self-sufficient in food and even
generate an income from the sale of their surplus crops.
They emphasise the usefulness of local farming knowledge,
growing crops suitable to the region and the need to
constantly link agricultural practices to nutrition. They also
stress the need for equitable access to markets for farmers and
fair prices for produce. Irish Aid have signalled that support for
women is crucial as they make up 80% of small holder farmers
and women usually look after the health and nutrition of their
families (Ibid).

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Postcards Campaign on Food Rights

Raising Awareness Localy for Global Change
Other methods to tackling the hunger crisis have been
proposed. AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution for Africa) is a
collective of a number of African governments, philanthropic
organisations such as the Rockefeller and Gates Foundations
and agribusiness. It has proposed to implement a green
revolution similar to that which happened in India from the
1960’s onwards. This aimed to reduce hunger by focusing
on the mass production of high yield varieties of rice and
wheat. However such farming required huge investments of
machinery, irrigation and large inputs of chemical pesticides
and fertilisers. While food production did increase yearly
by 7% poor Indians could not afford higher food prices,
much of the bio-diversity and as a result dietary diversity
was lost and there was huge rural unemployment as small
farmers were pushed out of business. The environment also
suffered through soil degradation, deforestation and overuse and pollution of water sources. Nevertheless AGRA see
no impediments to a similar revolution working in Africa
as technology has moved on and it is possible to create, for
instance, drought resistant crops (GRAIN, 2007).
While it is true that the world’s population continues to grow
and that food production needs to be increased to combat
hunger as well as meet the needs of expanding population it
seems that small scale, more sustainable and environmentally
friendly agriculture would be more appropriate to allow
people to feed them selves and generate their own income.
How is Ireland responding to food deprivation faced by
15% of its population? The Healthy Food for All initiative led
by Combat Poverty, Crosscare and St. Vincent de Paul aims
to promote the implementation of food policies based on
sustainable, affordable consumption and healthy eating
across the public policy spectrum. They have already had
cooperation from the HSE, Departments of Education,
Social and Family Affairs, Health and Children. On a practical
level they actively “support local initiatives which promote
availability and access to healthy and affordable food for lowincome groups, with a focus on community food initiatives
and direct food provision, including school meals.” (Combat
Poverty, 2008).
One such food initiative is the Seed to Plate Project in
Southill, Limerick. They run two organic gardens in Southill
with the participation of people from across the class and
age divides in Limerick. The project aims to promote healthy
eating and organic home gardening practices within the
local community, to improve access and availability of fruits
and vegetables in the community and to improve relations
between young and older people within the community. They
also operate a community café which cooks and sells produce
grown in the organic gardens. It aims to be a self-sustaining
initiative based on community participation (Healthy Food for
All, 2009).
There also exist in Ireland two food banks, one in Limerick

and Dublin, where producers and retailers can donate surplus
products – canned food, fresh produce, frozen foods, cereals
etc. – which are then redistributed among charities and NGOs
who work with disadvantaged groups such as the homeless or
low income families.

Conclusion
Amartya Sen has said that hunger and famine are caused
“by the inability of people to secure access to food – an
entitlement failure (Zerbe, 2004).” While natural events such as
changes in rainfall patterns may seem to cause famines it is in
fact because people in Southern Africa have limited ability to
secure access to other sources of food due to overall low levels
of development, low incomes, access to land and the ability
or willingness of their governments to provide assistance.
Since the modern, post-Victorian era, the developed world,
including Ireland, does not experience famine and yet it
is clear that if 15% of the population still suffers from food
deprivation or poverty that the developed world must
question consumption and production patterns that have led
to this situation. Neither are they separate problems, however.
We live on a small planet with an ever growing population
and it is up to all to realise our interdependence and to find
sustainable alternatives to the current ways in which or food
is produced, distributed and consumed so that everyone can
enjoy their right to food.
Bibliography
Combat Poverty Agency, (2008) available at: http://www.
combatpoverty.ie/research/foodpoverty.html#FoodPoverty
GRAIN, (2007) ‘A New Green Revolution for Africa?’ available at:
http://www.grain.org/briefings/?id=205
Healthy Food for All (2009) available at: http://www.
healthyfoodforall.com/
Irish Aid, (2008) ‘Irish Hunger Task Force Report 2008.’ available
at: http://www.irishaid.gov.ie/uploads/hunger_task_force.pdf
Khoo, S. (2010) Lecture notes from SP404 Development and
Change, NUI Galway
Zerbe, N. (2004) ‘Feeding the Famine? American food aid and
the GMO debate in southern Africa.’ Food Policy 29 pp.593-608